Illini Zip

I agree, just emphasizing the word “at”, because in my world our 18 point loss at Purdue equates to an 8 point loss on a neutral court. Much better than the 30 point drubbing Texas Tech just took.

Does Barre finally get playing time against Evansville? They are taller.

I’m surprised Oregon State is so non-athletic.

Yes…it…is.

The Evansville vs. Oregon State game about to start.

Bummer. No free tacos tonight.

@Blue & Gold, you watched Eric Mahaffey in high school. Did you see this coming? I mean, 20 pts tonight as a freshman?

He has looked slow tonight. Almost like he’s sick or something.

Eric going end to end for the dunk was sweet!!

Doesn’t our radio guys usually travel to these holiday tournaments?

Terrible close to the half. 11-0 run by the Gaels. Ugh!!

Don’t know the stats, but I imagine we need to improve our free throw shooting. Otherwise, we have found our flow.

A bit chaotic and undisciplined on offense, but again we are leading at the first media time out. How many times were we already down ten points a couple of years ago?

The 2023-2024 Indiana State Sycamores got snubbed by the tournament committee with a 32-7 record overall, 17-3 in the MVC. Here’s the part that will make your head spin. They had a NET ranking of 28.

Not thinking we are in the at-large bid range just yet, but winning will drive up our ranking thus hopefully a better seeding if we make the Tourney. Also winning games convincingly will do even more for us.

He sure was allusive though.

The NIU point guard I wanted us to try for went to Kansas and is now at Maryland? Good grief. How does Kansas not hang onto a guard capable of putting up 40 points? They must have guards who can put up 50.

Anybody surprised Arizona is ranked 4th in the nation? Not me.

One has to wonder how a 6-7 Harris and a 6-6 Eric Mahaffey might have helped us last year vs. Arizona in particular. But it just wasn’t meant to be.

I so badly want a marketing campaign to troll the big conferences. Something like… “Akron Basketball, good enough to play in the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big 12 and the Big East.”* * Based on Kenpom rankings on 11/18/2025. If they don’t like it they are welcome to send Rutgers, South Carolina, Utah, Boston College or DePaul amongst others to Akron to prove us wrong. Go Zips!!

I attended all 3 games in Fort Myers, Florida so you can blame me for that one.

I thought our guys came out of the gates pretty strong in this game. They were ready to go. If they can do that every time out I will be thrilled. And the maturity and composure of Eric as a freshman in that environment was quite amazing.

I like this tournament also.

They should call the event, the Little Dance.

Completely agree. I just think the venue is cool. Ceiling looks low, but otherwise very unique.